Longtime Hartford Accountant Named CEO Of CohnReznick

Frank P. Longobardi, who has deep roots in Hartford's accounting industry, has been named the chief executive of accounting firm CohnReznick, effective Oct. 1, it was announced Thursday.

CohnReznick, with 29 offices primarily in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, last year consolidated offices in Farmington and Glastonbury in downtown Hartford and now has 215 employees on two floors of the Metro Center office building.

Longobardi, 60, will relocate to New York in the fall and will be based in the firm's New York City headquarters. Longobardi now lives in Glastonbury.

Longobardi is a member of CohnReznick's executive board and regional manager for New England. He was on the team that oversaw the 2012 merger of J.H. Cohn and Reznick Group that formed CohnReznick.

Longobardi succeeds the current co-CEOs Ken Baggett and Tom Marino.

Longobardi's ties to Hartford go back 30 years to when he and Bob Haggett founded the accounting firm Haggett Longobardi downtown.

New Jersey-based J.H. Cohn expanded into Connecticut when it merged with Haggett, Longobardi & Co., then headquartered in Glastonbury, in 2007. In 2011, Cohn acquired Kostin, Ruffkess & Co. of Farmington.

Seven months later, Cohn merged with Reznick, then based in Maryland.

In a statement, Longobardi said that he looked forward to working with the firm's employees "shaping discussions around the issues that impact today's businesses and developing the future leaders of this firm."

The downtown Hartford office consolidation was aided by a $1.2 million state loan, requiring the addition of 40 jobs in four years. The firm had 196 employees when it moved into Metro Center late last year.